Angelos Merges' painting compositions deal with current social issues while exploring painting strategies that correspond to the post-analog era.
Strongly influenced by recent events that reshaped the socio-political landscape of Greece, his interest focuses on themes that revolve around the notion of liminality as a human condition. In his work, events that occurred over the last decade and personal memories blend, producing a series of images that are interpreted without being explained. Issues that emerged during the economic and refugee crisis meet memories from growing up in the island of Chios, his homeland, creating ambiguous images that oscillate between the intimate and the unfamiliar.
The series of paintings form open-ended narratives offering an intermediate space that prompts the viewers to position themselves and to fill in the narrative based on their own perceptions. In the depicted scenes, the exposed and the unseen, the initiated and the outsider seem to be in constant exchange in an attempt to raise questions about shifts of perspective and positions of power.
Belonging to a generation of artists who grew up during the time of digital outburst, he approaches painting as a medium that enables the artist to focus on content and method in an era where screen culture holds a dominant role in everyday life.
Angelos Merges was born in 1989 in Chios, Greece. He received an Integrated Master from Athens School of Fine Arts in the direction of Painting in 2020 and a Master in Fine Arts from Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in 2023. He lives and works in Zürich, Switzerland.
Solo Exhibitions
2023 CONTROL, Diploma show, ZHdK, Zurich
2020 Family of Man, ASFA Degree Show, Athens
2018 World’s Material, Melanithros, Athens
Group Exhibitions
2023 Visarte: "Einsichten 2023 and Friends", with FOMO art space, Photobastei, Zurich
2023 Visarte: "Einsichten 2023 and Friends", with Hotel Tiger art space, Photobastei, Zurich
2023 ENCORE: New Greek Painting, Municipal Gallery of Athens
2023 Sunburn, Studio West - London, online
2023 Emerging Voices, gallery Thalatta, Athens
2022 An exemplary Art Show, Hotel Tiger offspace, Zurich
2022 Xtra Rough, Schlieren, Zurich
2022 Mataroa Awards, Art Thessaloniki Fair, Thessaloniki
2022 Summer Projekt, Go Green Art Gallery, Zurich
2022 IN THE OTHER ROOM, Sonnenstube offspace, Lugano
2022 Soft Underbelly, Zoumboulaki gallery, Athens
2022 Graduates 2020-21 Seniors 2022, 16 Fokionos Negri, Athens
2022 Graduates 2019-2022, Athens School of Fine Arts, Athens
2021 21!, Archaeological Museum of Agios Nikolaos, Crete
2021 Reality Check, StandInLine Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus
2021 Back to Athens – Day Wavers, Isaia Megaron, Athens
2021 On a Small Scale, ALMA Gallery, Athens
2021 Carnival - Behind the masks, Skoufa Gallery, Athens
2020 The space of emplacement, Space52, online
2020 Platforms Project NET 2020, online
2019 The shaped Body, Stegi Grammaton kai Technon Aminteou, Florina
2019 9th Student’s Biennale, Athens School of Fine Arts, Athens
2019 Young_Artists, Balkan Art Gallery, Xanthi
2019 150 years Greek Railway, TrainOSE Contest, Engine room of Pireaus
2018 Visualization of Kiki Dimoula, Institut Français d'Athènes, Patra
Exhibitions with ACHT!
2021 Art Athina Pop Up, King George Hotel, Athens
2021 Chromophobia II, Nitra Gallery, Thessaloniki
2021 Chromophobia, Nitra Gallery, Athens
2021 Things can only get better - Group Show, Skoufa Gallery, Mykonos
Awards
2022 Zangger Weber Scholarship
2022 Heinrich Hintermeister Award
2022 Hirschmann Stipendium Award
2019 TrainOSE, «150 years Greek Railway» Award
Residency Programs
2022 Shared Campus Summer School - «Rivers. Jugular Veins of Empire», London
2015 Philoxenia Workshop, Festivart, Loutraki
Collections
OSE Museum, Athens
Works held in private collections in Switzerland, Greece and Cyprus